Joanna H. Mathews

“ Your mamma has got some one else to attend to."
"That's a shame, Martha," said Jane. "She's just teasing you, Miss Mamie; your mamma does care for you."
"Martha," said Bessie, "I'm glad you're not my nurse; I wouldn't love you if you were."
"There's no living with her. She'll be cured of her spoiled ways now," said Martha, as she tried to drag the struggling, screaming child away. But Mamie would not stir a step. She was in a great rage, and fought and kicked and struck Martha; but just then Mrs. Bradford was seen coming towards them. ”

“ TOM'S SUNDAY-SCHOOL.
"THERE'S Tom," said Maggie, on the next Sunday afternoon, as she looked out of the window; "he is talking to Mr. Jones, and now they are going to the barn. I wonder if he is going to swing on Sunday."
"Why, Maggie," said Bessie; "Tom wouldn't do such a thing."
"I thought maybe he forgot," said Maggie. "I forgot it was Sunday this morning, and I was just going to ask Mr. Jones to swing me. I wonder what they are doing. I can see in the door of the barn and they are busy with the hay. Come and look, Bessie." ”

“ Bessie squeezed the nose, first very gently, then a little harder, but it seemed all right, and felt just as a nose ought to feel. Then Mamie let Maggie squeeze; but she pinched harder than Bessie had done, and hurt it a little.
"Oh, you hurt! Go away!" said Mamie, and set up an angry cry.
Martha, who had been talking to Jane, rose at this. "Come, now," she said, "just have done with this. I wont have any more crying, you bad child."
"Go away!" screamed Mamie, as Martha came near; "you're bad yourself. Oh, I want my mamma!" ”

“ He's not a bit like Mr. Duncan. And I like your Aunt Annie too. She plays so nice, just as if she were a little girl herself; and she helps everybody if they don't know how, or fall down, or anything."
"Are we not having a real nice time, Bessie?" asked Gracie Howard.
[Pg 237]
"Yes," said Bessie; "but I do wish my soldier and Mrs. Yush could come to our party."
"What makes you care so much about Colonel Rush?" asked Gracie. "He's such a big man."
"He isn't any bigger than my father," said Bessie; "and I love my father dearly, dearly. We can love people just as much if they are big." ”

“ I am sure your dear little sister will be as great a delight to you as Annie is to Maggie and Bessie, and that you will learn to love her dearly; but you must be kind and loving yourself, dear, not selfish and jealous, if you should have to give up a little to baby. It was jealousy which made you so unhappy. Jealousy is a wicked, hateful feeling, one which is very displeasing in the sight of God, and which makes the person who gives way to it very miserable."
"It was Martha who made her jealous," said Maggie. "Martha is a very bad nurse; she is not fit to have the care of a child. ”

“ Duncan.
"Grandpa," said Bessie, "if people know about their souls, and don't care, I don't think they are much better than Toby."
"But, grandpa," said Maggie, "Toby behaves just as if he knew some things are naughty, and other things right. How can he tell if he has no soul? How did he know it was naughty for Joe to steal the pocket-book; and what is the reason he knows Susie must not go near the fire nor the cellar stairs?" ”

“ Bessie had never been shaken before. It was a punishment which Mr. and Mrs. Bradford [Pg 166] would not have thought proper for a child, were she ever so naughty, and she had never been punished at all by any one but her father or mother, and that but seldom. But it was not so much the shaking as Miss Adams' words which sobered Bessie in an instant. She had been in a passion again! She stood perfectly silent, her lips and cheeks growing so white that Miss Adams was frightened, but just then Mrs. Stanton stepped out on the piazza and came quickly toward them. ”

“ How can you help it?"
"Bessie," said the colonel, with a kind of groan, "I want to love him, but I don't know how. Don't cry so, my darling."
"Oh," said the child, stopping her sobs, "if you want to love him, he'll teach you how. Tell him you want to; ask him to make you love him, and he will. I know he will, 'cause he loves you so."
"Loves me?" said the colonel.
"Yes; he loves you all the time, even if you don't love him. I think that's what my hymn means. Even when we go away from him, he'll come after us, and try to make us love him. ”

“ Mamma wondered what she was considering, but said nothing, for she was sure that Bessie would soon come to her if she was in any difficulty.
"What are you thinking about, Bessie?" asked the colonel that afternoon, when she was in his room. He was much better, and was sitting up in his easy-chair.
"What is faith?" asked Bessie, answering his question by another, and turning her great serious, brown eyes on his face. The colonel looked surprised.
"Faith?" he said. "Why, to have faith in a person is to believe in him and trust in him." ”

“ Stone, and my sister's is Miss Stone."
"'Tain't," said the little girl, crossly, "it's nothing but Mary."
"Sure enough," said her brother; "she's just Miss Mary, quite contrary; whatever you say, she'll say just the other thing; that's her way."
"Now, Walter, you stop," said Mary in a whining, fretful voice.
"Now, Mamie, you stop," mimicked her brother.
"I think we wont be acquainted with you," said Bessie. "I am afraid you are not very good children."
"What makes you think so," asked Walter.
"'Cause you quarrel," said Bessie; "good children don't quarrel, and Jesus won't love you if you do." ”

“ But Mamie Stone is not nice if she is a girl; she is cross, and she did a shocking thing, Harry. She pinched Bessie's arm so it's all black and blue. But she was served right for it, 'cause I just gave her a good slap."
"But that was naughty in you," said Tom, who was standing by; "you should return good for evil."
"I sha'n't, if she evils my Bessie," said Maggie, stoutly. "If she hurts me I won't do anything to her, but if she hurts Bessie I will, and I don't believe it's any harm. ”

“ Bessie would sit down beside him and pat his rough head, and talk to him in a sweet, coaxing voice, and he would blink his eyes at her and flap his heavy tail upon the ground in a way that he would do for no one else.
"Bessie," said Maggie, one day, as her sister sat patting the great dog, "what makes you like Toby so much; do you think he is pretty?"
"No," answered Bessie, "I don't think he is pretty, but I think he is very good and wise."
[Pg 41]
"But he is not so wise as Jemmy Bent's Shock," said Maggie; "he does not know any funny tricks." ”

“ Mrs. Rush looked out of the window by which she sat, and seemed to be watching the sea; and Bessie stood, softly patting the colonel's knee with her hand, while for a moment or two no one spoke. Suddenly Bessie looked up in the colonel's face.
"Colonel Yush," she said, "don't you have a great deal of faith?"
"In some people, Bessie," he answered. "I have a great deal of faith in my little wife, and a great deal in my pet Bessie, and some few others." ”

“ While they were playing so nicely, who should come sweeping down the piazza but Miss Adams, dressed in her riding-habit? Away went all the little girls like a flock of frightened birds. Mamie and Lily ran into the parlor, where they peeped at her from behind the blinds; Gracie scrambled into Annie Stanton's lap; Maggie squeezed herself in between the colonel and Mrs. Rush; and Bessie walked to the other side of the colonel, where she stood with her hand on his chair. ”

“ Aunt Helen pays Mrs. Bent for those she makes, but Jemmy told her if he might use some of her yarn he would like to do it without pay, and she gave him leave; so his mother is teaching him, and you would think he is a girl to see how nicely he takes to it. He is not a bit ashamed of it either, if it is girl's work."
"And so he oughtn't," said Bessie. "Girl's work is very nice work."
"So it is, Queen Bess; and girls are very nice things when they are like our Midget and Bess."
"I don't think boys are half as nice as girls," said Maggie, "except you and Tom, Harry." ”

“ But now, when I have saved one of your chickens from a ducking, you cannot think I would hurt the other if you let me have her for a moment."
"Surely I will," said nurse; "but you are not going to stand and talk in such a pickle as that? You'll catch your death of cold."
"No fear," said Miss Adams, "I am tough. Come now, Bessie." She held out her hand to the little girl, and now that she had saved her brother, she went with her willingly. She was not afraid of her any more, though she wondered very much what the lady could have to say to her which nurse might not hear. ”

“ These reached as far as they could see on either side, and came so near to the edge of the road, that once, when James had to make way for a heavy hay wagon, and drew in his horses to let it pass, Maggie stretched her hand out of the carriage and pulled some sprigs from one of the bushes.
"Mamma, do you know that funny old man?" asked Bessie, as the driver of the hay wagon nodded to her mother, and Mrs. Bradford smiled and nodded pleasantly in return.
"No, dear; but in these lonely country places it is the custom for people to nod when they pass each other." ”

“ Bessie looked at her baby sister and then at her mother. Mamma's face troubled her even more than the baby's did, and she felt as it she must do something to comfort her. She laid her hand gently on her mother's shoulder, and said, "Dear mamma, don't you want to have a little angel of your own in heaven?" Mamma gave a start and put her arm farther over the baby, as if she thought something was going to hurt it. Papa stopped his walk and Bessie went on,—
"Maggie and I asked Jesus to spare her to us, if he could; but if he wants her for himself, we ought not to mind very much; ought we? ”

“ I don't like that way of being mysteyious at all. It hurts children's feelings very much to be sent out of the yoom."
"What are these magnificent young ladies to be named?" asked Uncle John, at the breakfast-table.
"Mine is to be Bessie Margaret Marion," said Maggie,—"after mamma and Bessie and Mrs. Rush."
"Why, all your dolls are named Bessie," said Harry; "there are big Bessie and little Bessie and middling Bessie."
"I don't care," said Maggie; "this is going to be Bessie too. She will have two other names, so it will be very nice. Besides, I am not going to play with middling Bessie again. ”

“ The nearer we come to the sun the lighter it grows, until, if some little girl who lives on our scratch is up early enough and looks out at the horizon, or place where the earth and sky seem to meet, she sees the sun showing himself little [Pg 16] by little; and it looks to her as if he were coming up out of the sea, while all the time the sun is standing still, and the earth on which we live is moving round so as to bring her once more opposite to him."
"And is it night on the other side of the world?" asked Maggie. ”

“ But if my little girl could have believed God's promise then, why can she not do so now? His word holds good as surely in these days as in those of Noah."
"So I do, mamma," said Maggie; "I forgot about the rainbow and God's promise. I wont be afraid any more, but I do wish it would not rain so hard, and that the wind would not blow quite so much."
"We are all in God's hands, Maggie. No harm can come to us unless he wills it."
"Franky don't like this great wind either, mamma," said Maggie, "and he said something so funny about it this morning. ”

“ Think what a soul is worth when it needed that such a price be paid for its salvation!"
"I can't help being sorry for Toby, 'cause he has no soul," said Bessie; "but I'm a great deal sorrier for those people that don't think about their souls, and go to Jesus to be saved. How can they help it, when they know he wants them to come? Grandpa, don't they feel ungrateful all the time?"
[Pg 280]
"I am afraid not, Bessie. If they do not feel their need of a Saviour, they do not feel their ingratitude." ”

“ Because he thought it best, Bessie. He made everything in the way which best fitted it for the purpose for which he intended it. This little crab lives under the sea, where he has a great many enemies, and where he has to find his food. With these round, staring eyes which stand out so far from his head, he can look in every direction and see if any danger is near, or if there is anything which may do for him to eat. With these long, awkward legs, he can scamper out of the way, and with those sharp claws, he fights, for he is a quarrelsome little fellow. ”

“ Even Mamie Stone was not heard to fret once.
"I do wish I had an Uncle John!" said Mamie, as she sat down to rest on the low porch step, with Bessie and one or two more of the smaller children, and watched Mr. Duncan, as he arranged the others for some new game, keeping them laughing all the time with his [Pg 236] merry jokes,—"I do wish I had an Uncle John!"
"You have an Uncle Robert," said Bessie.
"Pooh! he's no good," said Mamie. "He's not nice and kind and funny, like your Uncle John. He's as cross as anything, and he wont let us make a bit of noise when he's in the room. ”

“ Bessie nestled her head down on her mamma's bosom, and her mother held her there, and rocked her long after she was fast [Pg 193] asleep. Sometimes she smiled to herself as she sat thinking and watching her child; but once or twice a bright tear dropped down on Bessie's curls. Mamma was praying that her little girl might live to grow up and be a good Christian woman, and that she might always love the truth as she did now, even when she was older and knew it was not wise to say such things as she had done to-day. ”

“ He will forgive every one when they ask him, and [Pg 349] tell him they're sorry. The other day, when I was so wicked and in such a passion, and struck Mr. Lovatt, I asked Jesus to forgive me, and he did. I know he did. I used to be in passions very often, and he helped me when I asked him; and now he makes me better; and he'll forgive you too, and make you better."
"I fear there can be no forgiveness for me, Bessie. I have lived seven times as long as you, my child, and all that time, I have been sinning and sinning. I have driven God from me, and hardened my heart against the Lord Jesus. ”

“ Toby is a good, wise, faithful dog, and knows a great deal, but the weakest, the most ignorant boy or girl—that poor idiot you saw the other day—is far better, of far more value in the sight of God, for he has a soul ”

“ Lovatt, as he quickly set Bessie upon her feet, "who would have thought that tiny hand could have stung so?"
"You little tiger!" said Miss Adams, seizing Bessie by the shoulder and giving her a shake. "You are the child they call so good; are you? Why, there's not another in the house would have flown into such a passion for nothing. ”